HOW A REFORMED MONEY LAUNDERER FOUND OUT MOSSACK AND FONSECA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET MORE THAN A DECADE AGO

I was trying to learn who the beneficial owners of several shell corporations formed by Mossack & Fonseca were, many years ago, when I stumbled upon this clever method of operation. They formed front companies in a number of the English-speaking tax havens in the East Caribbean, rather than their native Panama, where they might be uncovered by an enhanced due diligence sleuth. They intentionally deleted the names of the specific jurisdictions from external correspondence with banks, leaving that information to be the subject of guesswork on my past. M & F staff were quite good at their jobs, I quickly realized.

Here's the best part; they used locally admitted lawyers in these tax haven island republics and British Overseas Territories, rather than their own Panama City people. When you tried to find office addresses for these locals though, there was no brisk-and-mortar law office to be found; they were working virtually, long before such a term was fashionable for attorneys, making further inquiries impossible. there was simply no physical office to visit, let alone subpoena if you could, no legal secretaries or paralegals to interrogate, and no bloody files.

Now you know why I regarded that firm as highly effective in assisting corrupt PEPs, American tax evaders, and professional money launderers, and why it was a clear and present danger to the global banking community, as an opaque company, when using legitimate international financial institutions, increases the risk those banks may someday be held accountable by the law, or regulators, for facilitating money laundering.